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Lost Trivia
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Lost John Locke
John Locke is a fictional character on
the ABC television series Lost played by Terry O'Quinn. In 2007,
O'Quinn won the Emmy award for acting in a supporting role for his
portrayal of Locke. Initially in the first season of the show, he is
introduced as a very mysterious and brave, intellectual, warrior-like
character with a mystical calm demeanor. However, since the second
season, he has evolved into a more "human"-like character having
varying moods. In addition, his flashbacks portray him as angrier and
more emotional. He is the antithesis to Jack Shephard and, to a certain
extent, Ben Linus. At the conclusion to season 4, he is appointed the
"leader" of the remaining
Others.
Prior to the crash
When John Locke is young he is placed in government care, where he
finds himself in a multitude of foster homes. He is visited by Richard
Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) at one of these foster homes, who describes
Locke as "extremely special". Grown up Locke, who is working at a toy
store, is visited by his mother who tells him he was immaculately
conceived. Curious, Locke hires a private investigator to track down
the location of his father, Anthony Cooper (Kevin Tighe). Cooper warmly
welcomes Locke into his life, and the two bond over hunting trips.
Cooper reveals he needs a kidney transplant, and Locke agrees to donate
one of his. Following the surgery, Cooper abandons Locke and refuses to
see him. Locke then becomes very depressed and eventually seeks
therapy, where he meets his future girlfriend Helen. Helen helps Locke
overcome stalking his father, but when Cooper comes to Locke for
assistance and he helps him, Helen leaves him. Following a brief period
living in a marijuana-producing commune (which he unwittingly ruins by
bringing in an undercover policeman disguised as a hitch-hiker) Locke
retreats into a life of solitude, until he is visited one day by a man
asking for information about "Adam Seward", who intends to marry the
man's wealthy mother. Locke realizes it is Cooper, meets with him, and
orders him to not marry the man's mother. Cooper pushes Locke out a
window, sending him tumbling eight stories to the sidewalk below. Locke
survives the fall with a broken back, an injury that puts him in a
wheelchair. A man named Matthew Abaddon (Lance Reddick) visits him as
he is recovering and tells him to go on a walkabout for a period of
self-discovery. Once recovered, Locke flies to Australia, where he is
denied admission on the walkabout because of his paraplegic state, so
he boards Oceanic Flight 815 to return home.
After the crash
After crashing on the Island in the fuselage section, Locke
miraculously regains the use of his legs. It is found out that Locke is
an expert at hunting and tracking, and is seen by most of the survivors
as the second in command next to Jack Shepherd (Matthew Fox). Locke
visibly becomes the most spiritual toward the Island and has no
intention of leaving the Island. On one hunt he encounters the monster,
describing it as a "bright light".[5][6] When Claire Littleton (Emilie
de Ravin) is abducted, Locke helps Jack, Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly)
and Boone Carlyle (Ian Somerhalder) to look for her. Whilst searching,
he and Boone discover the hatch, which they then spend most of their
time trying to open. During this time, Boone becomes Locke's protégé
and Locke tries to teach him the nature of the Island. When Locke has a
vision one night of a Beechcraft crashing, Locke and
Boone
then go looking for the plane and discover it lodged atop a cliff.
Boone climbs up into the plane, but it falls while he is still inside.
Locke carries him back to the caves, then sneaks away to the hatch,
where he bangs furiously on the door, devastated by Boone's death.
However, just as Locke loses hope, a light shines from the hatch, and
Locke sees it as a sign. Locke returns to the beach in time for Boone's
funeral, and reluctantly reveals the existence of the hatch. Due to
Boone's death, Jack never trusted Locke again and develops a strong
hatred for him. The survivors go to a ship known as the Black Rock and
find some dynamite. On the way back, Locke and Jack confront each
other, their beliefs, and leadership differences, and each come to the
conclusion that the other will be a problem. Once they return to the
Hatch, Locke uses the dynamite to blow it open.
In the beginning of season two, Locke enters the hatch and discovers
Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), who shows Locke an orientation
film explaining that the hatch was once used for studying
electromagnetism. Seeing that his replacements have arrived, Desmond
leaves, and in order to prevent the world from ending, a button must be
pushed every 108 minutes, so Locke sets up a schedule for people to
enter the numbers into the computer. When Ben Linus
(Michael Emerson), under the guise of "Henry Gale", arrives in the
jungle, Locke holds him in the empty armory. Since Jack and Locke lived
together alone in the hatch, Ben assesses that the two hated each other
and baited them to fight each other constantly, making Jack hate Locke
even more. One day in the hatch, the blast doors in the hatch all
descend, and Locke tasks Ben with entering the numbers in the computer.
Locke notices a strange map drawn on one of them when the lights go
out, which he manages to sketch after the blast doors rise again. Locke
and the other survivors soon find out that Ben was lying about his
identity and he refuses to speak to anyone but Locke. Ben taunts Locke
continually by telling him that his people saw the place as a joke and
that he never entered the numbers in the computer, which resulted in
Locke losing faith that the button was real. When Ben escapes, Locke
and Mr.
Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) enter the jungle to search him but
find the "?" on Locke's map, where they discover the Pearl station,
which explains that pushing the button is just to test the occupants of
the hatch. Locke abandons pushing the button, and attempts to destroy
the computer. He and the recently returned Desmond sneak into the hatch
to allow the timer to reach zero, but when the electromagnetic force
builds up, Locke realizes that he has been wrong all along. He is still
in the hatch when Desmond turns the fail-safe key that causes the hatch
to implode.
The third season begins with Locke waking in the jungle the next day,
unable to speak. He builds a sweat lodge to induce a hallucination, in
which Boone tells him to rescue Eko. He and Eko journey to the
Pearl station with some of the other survivors, where they rewire the
circuits in the monitors to view surveillance from another hatch. They
leave the station and discover Eko dead in the jungle. After burying
him, Locke notices an inscription on Eko's prayer stick instructing him
to go north. Locke, Kate, Sayid (Naveen Andrews), and Danielle Rousseau
(Mira Furlan) go on a mission to rescue Jack from the Others. When they
arrive at the Others' village, Locke takes Ben hostage and forces Ben
to show him the location of the Others' submarine. Locke then uses some
C-4 to blow up a submarine that Jack was going to use to get off of the
Island. After this, Ben tells him of a magic box and then shows him his
father Anthony Cooper and tells Locke that he can join the Others' if
he can kill his father. Locke manipulates Sawyer (Josh Holloway) into
murdering Cooper for him, then carries the corpse with him to the
Others' camp. He is taken by Ben to see Jacob, then to a pit full of
long-deceased Dharma members, where Ben shoots Locke, because Locke was
able to hear Jacob which would be a threat to his leadership of the
Others. Locke contemplates suicide, but his faith is restored upon
witnessing an apparition of Walt. He makes his way to where Jack has
taken the survivors, kills a woman from the freighter (Naomi), and asks
him not to contact the nearby freighter, as he believes the people on
it to be dangerous, but Jack ignores him. After contact with the
freighter is made, Locke goes into the jungle and heads back to the
beach camp to hopefully get some support from some of the other
survivors.
In season four, Jack finds Locke, takes his gun, and pulls the trigger
to discover that it is unloaded. Because of this incident and Charlie
Pace's (Dominic Monaghan) warning, the survivors split into two groups,
with those believing the people from the freighter to be dangerous
joining Locke. People in Locke's group included Hugo "Hurley" Reyes
(Jorge Garcia), Sawyer, Claire, Ben, Rousseau, and Alex Rousseau (Tania
Raymonde). Locke decides to go to Jacob for advice, but is unable to
find Jacob's cabin, so they proceed to the Others' village. For the
first few days there, Ben continually taunts Locke for not having a
plan, but Ben eventually explains that Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) is
the man who sent the freighter, and that he wants to exploit the
Island. After the village is ambushed by a group from the freighter and
most of Locke's group is killed (including Rousseau and Alex who was
executed right in front of her adoptive father Ben), Locke leads Ben
and Hurley to look for the cabin again, since Hurley claimed to see
it.[26] Locke has a dream in which the Dharma Initiative member who
built the cabin tells him that Jacob is waiting for him. In the pit
containing the bodies of the Dharma Initiative members, Locke finds a
map to the cabin, which Locke, Ben and Hurley follow. On the way to the
cabin Ben laments to Locke about his own destiny and that Locke would
soon know the consequences of being chosen. Inside the cabin he is told
the way to save the Island is to move it. Ben leads Locke and Hurley to
a Dharma station known as the Orchid that will be able to do this, but
discovers the mercenaries waiting for Ben there, so Ben turns himself
over and instructs Locke how to get in the actual station. After
failing to find it, Jack arrives and Locke tries to convince Jack not
to leave. His argument is unsuccessful so he tells Jack that he'll have
to lie about the Island and everything that has happened to them in
order to protect it and the people on it. Ben escapes and they enter
the Orchid station together, only to discover that the Mercenaries
leader, Martin Keamy (Kevin Durand) survived his encounter with Ben and
followed him back. Keamy warns Ben that he has a dead man's trigger on
him and that if he dies everyone on the freighter will also, but Ben
kills him anyway to avenge his daughter's death, much to Locke's
horror. Ben then apologizes for making Locke's life miserable and tells
Locke that he is the new leader of the Others. Locke joins the Others
as Ben moves the Island.
Immediately after the island is apparently moved, Locke finds himself
along with the other island survivors traveling through time at random
points indicated by a bright flash. Surprisingly, Locke realizes that
he is alone and surveys the area. He is interrupted by a plane, oddly,
the same plane belonging to Eko's brother, crashing. After a failed
response from Eko's brother and/or the men in the plane, Locke attempts
to climb up but is shot in the leg. He falls to the ground and notices
Ethan approaching him. Ethan interrogates him very aggressively and,
after Locke confirms that he knows him and informs him that Ben has
appointed him the new leader, Ethan retorts by saying it's the
stupidest thing he's heard. Ethan attempts to shoot Locke when another
flash happens. This time at night, he is found by Richard. Richard
tells Locke that he knew of his location from Locke himself. He informs
Locke that they will be strangers at their next meeting, and thus gives
him a compass to get his younger self to trust Locke. He also tells
Locke this is happening because of those that have left the Island and
that he must get them to return. He then tells Locke of his need to die
to ensure this. Later, Locke saves Juliet and Sawyer from three men,
with one dying and the men later revealed to be members of the "Others"
circa 1954, with one of them being a young Charles Widmore.
After the Island
After a series of flashback's that has Locke at a point where even the
Statue is still standing, Locke leaves the Island at Christian's
beheast via the Orchid Station and emerges about 3 years in the future.
Locke is made contact with Charles Widmore, whom provides John with
Abbadon as his assistant and what he needs to find the 6 people that
left the island. Locke is able to visit Jack, Sayid, Kate, Hurley and
Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley), under the alias "Jeremy Bentham" and
tells them all, with the exception of Walt, they must return to the
Island and that very bad things happened once they left. He
particularly tells Jack that it is all his fault for leaving. It was
believed Locke hanged himself after unsuccessfully trying to convince
members of the Oceanic 6 to return to the Island, but it is revealed he
was actually prevented from carrying out his suicide attempt and then
murdered by Ben Linus. Locke's death drives Jack to trying to
unsuccessfully kill himself because of his regret for leaving. His wake
is attended only by Jack. Ben later approaches Jack and informs him the
only way to return to the Island is to bring everyone back, including
Locke's corpse.
Locke's suicide note is given to Jack by Faraday's mother, Ms. Hawking.
Locke's death was necessary so that his body would act as a proxy for
Christian Shephard (whose body had been on the original flight) in
order to as closely as possible recreate the conditions by which the
Oceanic Six first found the Island. When Jack eventually brings himself
to open the suicide note, it reads simply: 'Jack, I wish that you had
believed me. JL'.After flight 316 crashes on the Hydra Island near the
main island, Locke is brought back to life.
Themes
Games
Locke is frequently connected with games in Season 1. He teaches and
plays backgammon with Walt and Sawyer, which he refers to as a game
between "Dark and light...good and evil," demonstrates Mouse Trap to a
child in a flashback scene in "Deus Ex Machina", plays a card game on
one of the others' computers and has fun playing Risk with a co-worker
in "Walkabout". In a deleted scene from "Tabula Rasa" Locke is shown
giving Walt tips on how to play poker, identifying the "tells" of the
various castaways. In "Exodus: Part 2" while handling dynamite, Locke
asks Jack if he ever played Operation, joking that he "always got
nailed by the funny bone"; he then proceeds to make a buzzing sound
while lifting one of the fragile explosives. A startled Jack asks, "Do
you like to play games, John?" Locke smiles and says, "Absolutely." In
"Enter 77", Locke plays numerous matches against the Flame Station's
computer chess program, eventually beating it. The finished chess board
is a reference to the "Brisbane Bombshell" match between Anatoly Karpov
and Garry Kasparov.[34] In Season 4, Locke plays a game of Risk with
Hurley and Sawyer.
Faith
Locke's life has a repeated pattern of believing in a higher being or
purpose (for example: his father, or pressing the button in the hatch).
He begins to suspect that he was destined to be on the island, which
coincided with the partial loss of his recovered ability to walk.
Midway into Season 2, however, his faith begins to falter as he slowly
grows disillusioned with repeatedly pressing the button. The season
finale of Season 2 concludes with Locke ultimately deciding not to
press the button, despite the protests of Mr. Eko, who tries
unsuccessfully to convince John to keep believing (and keep pushing).
After the cataclysmic events that occurred when they stopped pushing
the button, Locke admitted that he was wrong to stop believing.
At the beginning of Season 3, Locke's faith seems to be fully restored.
This is supported by the fact that Locke's first action after regaining
consciousness is to "talk to the island," a strongly spiritual action
that harkens back to the Locke of Season 1, who considered the island
to be a nexus of spiritual energy, and an entity that could be
communicated with. After Mr. Eko is killed by the smoke monster, it is
Locke who buries him, thanking him for restoring his faith.
Development
Lost creator J. J. Abrams had worked with Terry O'Quinn previously on
"Alias", and was keen to work with him again. He explained that
although the role in the first episodes would be fairly small, the
character will develop afterwards. O'Quinn took the role as he trusted
Abrams. He was also the only character who did not have to officially
audition for a part of a main character.
John Locke is named after the English philosopher of the same name, and
his alias, Jeremy Bentham, is also the name of an English philosopher.
When Damon Lindelof was asked on the chatroom of Lost.com if Locke
would come back to life upon returning to the island, he said:
“ Remember the linear timeline of the island and in real life. Also,
remember when Jack found his Dad's coffin in season 1 on the island.
Where was the body? Consider Locke's coffin on the island. Also, season
2: what happened to Eko's brother in the plane? ”
In the episode Cabin Fever two actors play a younger Locke in
flashbacks; Charles Wyson plays Locke at age 5, while Caleb Steinmeyer
plays Locke at age 16.
